1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ticket processing terminal device for issuing airline boarding tickets and various types of reservation and other tickets. The invention also relates to processing of information with respect to these tickets, and issuing reservation tickets or the like in exchange for money-equivalent notes or the like.
2. Technology Review
The use of reservation systems is increasing in the fields of passenger transportation, drama and music concerts and other fields of entertainment as well as many others, and automation has been carried out for some time in order to accurately manage the large amounts of reservation information. As a result of this, various types of ticket issuing machines have been proposed and brought into practical operation.
FIG. 4 is a side cross section indicating the configuration of one example of such a ticket issuing machine, and in this figure, 1 is a device housing, and on the top of the front panel of this device housing 1 is an operation keyboard 2 provided with operating keys for the input of information by the operator, and on top of the device housing 1 is a display section 3 which is a CRT or some other type of display device to display the information, etc.
Number 4 indicates a ticket discharge opening provided on the top of the device housing 1, while 5 indicates a ticket printer section located inside the device housing 1. The printer section 5 includes a platen 6, a print head 7 located opposite this platen 6, a ribbon supply reel 8, a ribbon take-up reels 9, an ink ribbon 10 wound around both of these reels 8 and 9 and set so as to pass in front of the print head 7, and other parts that are not indicated but which include a motor, a drive transmission mechanism and the like that drive sections 6 through 10.
Number 11 is an unprinted medium which is to become a reservation ticket or the like. A hopper 12 is located at the bottom of the device housing 1, and stores the medium in fanfold form. The hopper 12 includes a near end detector, not shown, for the medium 11, as well as other necessary mechanisms.
Number 13 is a transport path that has a belt and rollers to sandwich the medium 11 so that is can be transported, and this transport path 13 is located so as to link the print medium supply opening of the hopper 12, the print section comprising the print head 7 and the platen 6 in the printer section 5 and the ticket discharge opening. A cutter 14 is located along this transport path between the print medium supply opening and the print section.
Number 15 is a journal printer section positioned above the printer section 5, and this journal printer section 15 includes journal paper 16 wound into a roll, a platen 17, a print head 18 positioned opposite this platen, take-up rollers 19a and 19b positioned at the top of the device housing 1, and the motor and the drive transmission mechanism and other parts that drive sections 16 through 19a and 19b. The journal paper 16 is set so that it passes from its support part between the platen 17 and &he print head 18, and through the paper discharge opening in the top surface of the device housing 1, and reaches the take up rollers 19a and 19b.
FIG. 5 is a function block diagram for the device shown in FIG. 4, and in this diagram, 20 is a main control device for the overall control of the device, and to this main control device 20 are connected the keyboard 2, the printer section 5 and the journal printer section 15, as well as a display control section 21, a discharge sensor 22, a hopper mechanism section 23, a memory such as RAM 24, a communications control section 25 and a transport control section 26, all of which are governed by this main control device 20.
The display control section 21 controls the content of the display performed by the display section 3, while the discharge opening sensor 22 is for detecting the presence or absence of a ticket at the ticket discharge opening 4 in FIG. 4, and the hopper mechanism section 23 is comprised of a near end detection sensor included in the hopper, and a means of supplying the medium 11.
The memory 24 is used to store the information that is input from the keyboard 2 or the like, the communications section 25 is an interface to perform transmission and receipt of information to and from a host device, and the transport control section 26 is for controlling a drive device group 27 such as the motors, solenoids and the like, that are not indicated in the figure, for driving the belt, the roller and other elements forming the transport path, and a sensor group 28 that detects positions of the medium 11 that is transported by the transport path 13.
If, for example, this configuration is used to issue a ticket for a reservable seat on a train, the operator uses the keyboard 2 to input the names of the departure and arrival stations, the name of the train, the number of the train, the boarding date and time and other information. This information will then be temporarily stored in the memory 24 and at the same time will be communicated by the main control section 20 via the communications control section 25 to the host device, and the seating information for the train specified by the information will be retrieved from the files of the host device.
The retrieved information is then sent to the main control section 20 via the communications control section 25 and the main control section 20 temporarily stores &his seating information in the memory 24 and at the same time displays it on the display section S via the display control section 21.
The operator then looks at this information and judges whether or not it is possible to make a seat reservation, and if possible, uses the keyboard 2 to input the information specifying the seat number of the seat to be reserved and the issue of the ticket, so that the seat number is stored in the memory 24 and so that the control section 20 drives the drive device group 27 through the transporter control section 26.
By this operation, the transport path 13 transports the medium 11 to the prescribed position and the cutter 14 cuts the medium 11 into the prescribed length, and then the medium 11 is again transported by the transport path 13 to the position for printing located between the printer section 5 and the platen 7.
After that, the main control section 20 sends the print instruction and the information stored in the memory 24, to the printer section 5, and through this, the print head 7 uses the ink ribbon 10 to print the information onto the medium.
After the printing has finished, the main control section 20 uses the transport control section 26 to drive the drive device group 27. As a result, the medium 11 is transported by the transport path -3 to the ticket discharge opening 4, and a shutter not indicated in the figure opens so that the medium 11 is discharged through the ticket discharge opening 4 as a reservation ticket.
In the course of the above processing, the journal printer section 15 prints out the information that is to be preserved and operates according to the instructions of the main control section 20 so that the print head 18 prints onto the journal paper 16, and after that the journal paper 57 is taken up by the take-up rollers 19a and 19b.
In conventional ticket issuing devices such as the one described above, the information necessary to issue a reservation ticket still has to be obtained by the operator asking the customer to whom the reservation ticket is to be issued, the operator has to operate the keyboard or some other device to perform input, and also, if, as in the case of reservation tickets for airlines, the airline ticket issued by a travel agency or the like is exchanged at the airport counter for a boarding ticket, the operator has to use the keyboard to input the information that is already contained on the airline ticket to create a new boarding ticket. This increases the number of operations that the operator has to perform, and therefore creates the problem of increased operator load.
Another problem is that the medium to be processed as the reservation ticket is limited to the one type stored in the hopper in advance, so that replacement issue of tickets and processing on information for other tickets cannot be made.
Moreover, in recent years, a system has been proposed in which boarding tickets for airlines are provided with a magnetic stripe on which prescribed information is recorded at the time of issue; a card reader is provided at the boarding gate in an air terminal to read the information on the magnetic stripe on the boarding ticket; and when the information is valid, the gate is opened. But the problem is that the conventional ticket issuing device cannot issue or process the boarding tickets with a magnetic stripe.
Another problem is that a failure of the read unit means that the device can no longer be used until the repair work is complete, and that if it is necessary to use the device before the read unit is repaired, then an operator will have to input the necessary information.
Purchasing a ticket in conventional ticket processing is generally performed in cash i.e. cash is passed between the customer and the person in charge of ticket issue or sales.
Performing transactions in cash in this way between the customer and person in charge lightens the load on the operator, but the recent diffusion of credit cards and cash cards has led to an increase of purchasing being performed without cash to the extent that transactions that can be finalized only in cash have come to be regarded by customers as inconvenient.
In the case of such cashless transactions, the load upon the operator is not increased to any great degree if this work is performed by the operator as well, but in the case of the conventional devices, there is no provision for the cashless issuance of tickets.